The Struggle Of Our Lives

Chapter 4, continued.

And so, it was time leave behind nearly everything we owned and started walking.

We walked for about 30 minutes before Charlotte got tired and wanted upsies. Theodore followed shortly after. I ended up walking 5 miles with them on my hips, with my hands dragging our suitcases along behind us. All in all, I was dragging around about 180 pounds, not counting myself.

I was exhausted, and at some point we came across a Shop-rite. I stashed our suitcases in a few bushes outside the parking lot and took the kids inside to go to the bathroom.

When we came out, I noticed a shopping cart already out of the bounds of the parking lot, and stopped walking.

I found our suitcases and placed them inside the cart, using my bigger one to cover the bottom and the kid's bags to make a makeshift pillow.

I had arranged the twins in the cart so they could ride in it.

Turns out, pushing all that weight is a hell of a lot easier than straight up holding it. I was tired, but kept walking.

At some point, my legs were close to giving out on me. I had walked into the city and found a few large public trashcans. Something told me to take the contents.

I removed the tops of the garbages and took out the bags inside three of the boxes. I cinched the ends of the bag using the red plastic and wrapped them through the metal holes in the sides of the cart.

By now, the twins had slept a little and woken up, but still didn't want to walk. They were hungry and cranky. I couldn't blame them.

I was too.

I came across a dead alleyway between an apartment building and a corner store. I looked around the area and noticed a pair of symbols spray painted in white onto the backside of the wall of the store.

One was four horizontal lines, and one was an oval with horizontal lines inside it. It reminded me of the bread we learned about in Social Studies that my teacher had said medieval people ate.

I took out my phone and looked up what the symbols meant.

I found out, the corner store had free wi-fi. I found a list of symbols commonly marked on buildings on Wikipedia.

According to the article, the symbols meant something along the lines of "get fed for chores," and "food here."

I put my phone back into my pocket and shuffled the cart to the farthest corner of the alley, then helped the twins out of their metal wagon.

We went through our suitcases, and took out our blankets and pillows. In the opposite corner, I arranged them so we could all sleep comfortably.

The kids promised to stay put, and I handed Theo my pocket knife, just in case.

John gave that knife to me..

I pushed the thoughts away and turned the corner to the store. I had brought my money with me that I stole from my black piggy bank.

I walked inside and went up to the counter.

"hey." I started.

I picked out a red lighter and placed it onto the counter along with a five dollar bill.

"Just this."

The man looked at me and the lighter. "want some cigarettes with that?" He asked.

I laughed it off and replied jokingly "some other time."

He handed me my change and wished me a good day. As I walked out of the store, I turned to my right to descend down the alleyway. I took my knife back from Teddy and used it to cut the red drawstrings off of our stolen shopping cart.

I dragged the three bags into the middle of the alley, and arranged it so it wasn't to close to our makeshift bed, but wasn't too far.

I took my new lighter out of my pocket and carefully lit the trash on fire. The bags and their contents were quickly consumed by the flames.

We didn't have a fireplace at home, so the twins looked at the flame in awe.

I collected leaves and twigs from inside our large cubby and threw them onto the fire. There seemed to be a lot of newspapers in the trash bags. The smoke from my bonfire rose a few feet into the air before dissipating.

I had read a lot of different genres of books at my school. A few of them happened to be about survival out in the woods. I always thought it seemed fun to live like nomads.

I turned around and crouched down with Theo and Char and the three of us laid down.

"Terry?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes?"

"Can you tell us a story?"

I sat up slightly and prepared myself to create another story for the twins. They've asked for bedtime stories ever since they learned how to talk. I loved how them asking for new ones made me feel.

Even if they just wanted the stories to stall for time, or even if they just wanted to be lulled to sleep, it made me feel wanted.

It made me feel like they enjoyed spending extra time with me, even though they spent more time with me than they did anyone else. A few months ago, I started showing symptoms of depression, and I never wanted to get out of bed.

But Teddy and Charlotte helped pull me put of my room even on the days I felt like the world would be better off without me. They were just as stubborn as I was, so they would never take no for an answer.

Especially from me, since I really tried to never say no to them.

"Well once upon a time, there was a knight named Sir Talksalot. He had a reputation for flirting with every woman he saw."

The two looked at me with much anticipation.

 
This is gonna be a real long night, isn't it?